This past week I happened to be watching
the NBA Finals. During the course of game 6, there was a moment when the
announcers began talking about the graphic laid out across the screen - “Time
since their last Championship.” What it amounted to is that it has been a
really long time since the Cavaliers, or Indians or Browns have won a
championship. It would certainly be fair to say, Cleveland sports fans have
learned a great deal of patience over the years – as they wait for their team
to return to the World Series.
But let’s say you are a New York Yankees
fan, you also think about the last time your team went to the World Series and
won. But you know that your team, with 27 championships, has won more than any
other team in MLB. When you look back in history, you only have to go back a
few years to 2009 to the last time your team won it all. You wonder not about
if your team is going to the Series, but how sweet it will be to win
championship #28. And if you don’t reach the World Series and win it all, or if
there is a drought of any kind, maybe you’re thinking that something must be
wrong and want to proceed in firing the entire team, manager and all.
Regardless of what team you’re a fan of,
or if you simply look on in amazement at the fans of any team, all of us have
been given various amounts of patience through the circumstances of life.
If patience is a virtue – on a scale of 1
to 10 – how much patience do you have? A little; a lot; or not nearly enough?
Our patience is often easily tested when things don’t go according to plan –
when the economy bottoms out and you lose your job, when you’re waiting in the
doctor’s office for the test results, or your patience of a father or mother is
tested raising children. The thing that we’ll always want to remember is that
the Lord is in control of everything in life, including the Cleveland sports
teams and the Yankees.
Before we look at our gospel lesson, let’s
think of a few biblical examples of patience or lack thereof. Jonah was so
adamant that he did not want to accept the Lord’s call to preach to the wicked
people of Nineveh that he ran away to the opposite end of the earth. But God
had patience with Jonah and with the people of Nineveh. In the end all the
people of that great city put on sackcloth and fasted and repented of their
sins.
When talking about patience as we wait for
the end of the world, the apostle Peter was inspired to write – 2 Peter 3:8-9 –
8 …with the Lord a day is
like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord
is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient
with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
The apostle Paul understood God’s
patience. The man formerly known as Saul – the great persecutor of the early
Christian Church. He was a zealous Jew who persecuted Christianity b/c he
thought he was doing God a favor. God struck him down and worked in his heart
through the Word. And after his conversion, he became one of the greatest
missionaries Christianity has ever seen. How much patience did the Lord have
with Paul? How much patience does he have with your and me?
In our gospel lesson this morning, Jesus used
two parables to teach about patience as God goes about his work. God tells us
in His Word that the Holy Spirit is actively working by creating and
strengthening faith in human hearts through the power of His Word. He asks us
to have patience in trusting that God’s Word works in a miraculous way – and that
we have patience while we wait for growth.
No comments:
Post a Comment